Star Stuff
by Flobbergasted
Summary: It doesn't seem fair or rational to be upset with a person because of how they behaved in a dream, but yet, Jughead is. (In which Jughead reflects on his relationships and interprets his dream. Set during 1x07, "In a Lonely Place")


_I disclaim that Riverdale is not mine._

* * *

It doesn't seem fair or at all rational to be upset with a person because of how they behaved in a dream, but yet, Jughead is.

At first, upon waking, he feels guilt: _I didn't mean to hurt you, Archie. It wasn't my intention to stab you in the back. I didn't mean to step into the life that was meant for you. I don't know how it happened. I don't_ want _that life. … I don't think I want that life._

 _And dad – dad, I didn't mean to ignore you, to move on without you. How did we get so far apart?_

He can't shake it off. The hazy light, the bright pastels, the whiff of pineapple-glazed ham (his grandmother's, incongruously), the feeling that his father was in an unreachable realm despite being visible, the ring on Betty's hand, the look on Archie's face … The atmosphere of the dream, its veneer, stays with him all morning, through English class, through math. The mood begins to lift, just a little, as he comes up on lunch hour and meets the gang in the lounge.

Betty is there, and soothing her soothes him.

But when Archie catches up with him in the hallway and asks, point blank, about the closeness developing between Jughead and Betty, Jughead is hesitant to spill the beans. Still, despite the recent speed bumps that had nearly toppled their friendship, he finds he can't hold anything back from Archie when he's in earnest.

(Oh, how he wishes he could. It would have saved him the admission that followed their startling encounter in the school showers early that morning: that Jughead isn't living at home.)

Begrudgingly, Jughead admits he and Betty "may have had a moment."

He can't keep things from Archie; that has been true for years. But right now – when it's about _this_ – he resents Archie for it. Why can't the guy let him have this one thing for himself, quietly, just for a day or two? This one perfect memory (kissing Betty), and this delicate, likely brief period of longing and exploration that seems to be opening up with her, all of which should not be spoken aloud for fear of jinxing the whole thing … Doesn't Archie know any better? Is he _trying_ to sabotage them?

And Jughead resents the familiar ease with which Archie talks about Betty, as though she is a slice of apple pie or a comfortable pair of shoes, and not an absolute diamond in the Riverdale rough. Does Archie not realize she's special, or does he not care?

Which is worse?

It is this moment of spitefulness that causes Jughead to realize that his post-dream guilt has morphed into righteous anger: _I_ didn't _stab you in the back, you asshat. You don't even_ want _her._

 _(I do. It turns out,_ I _do.)_

 _And how can you walk around pretending not to be possessive of her, pretending not to be territorial, while apparently watching our every move? I know that, even as you tell me you "get it, it's cool," you're thinking, "how dare they?" I've overstepped an invisible line – but you never consulted me when you drew that line. And I know I was complicit, but now I don't want to be, and it's too late; the line is there._

He can't help but feel angry – at Archie, at himself – because somehow Betty has wriggled in: into his life, right into the inside of himself. Worse, he doesn't regret it for a second.

For most of their lives she had just been Archie's girl friend – as in, Archie's other friend, who happened to be a girl. But Jughead has come to realize that, over the past year or two, it's as if that L in "girl" and that F in "friend" were drawing closer unavoidably, in accordance with some sort of unspoken law of the universe; Betty had been Archie's girl friend, but the time would inevitably come when she would be his girlfriend. Like two binary stars in one another's orbits, Archie and Betty were gravitating toward one another at increasing speeds. One day there would be sparks, fireworks, explosions even – a supernova – and everyone in the galaxy would forget that "girl" and "friend" had ever been two distinct words.

But Jughead has stopped seeing her as Archie's Girl Friend, let alone as Archie's Someday Girlfriend. She has become simply _Betty_. Betty the brave, Betty the beautiful, Betty the compassionate.

So of course he's angry, because, _Hello, universe, what about all the rest of us celestial bodies out here? Do we have any choice but to be eclipsed by this impending supernova? Is there no gravity left over for anyone else?_ He's tired of being the moon to Archie's sun. Or is Betty the moon, and he's the darkness itself? (Fine; the space analogy only goes so far.) (Pun intended?)

Maybe what he's really angry about is this: Jughead doesn't know how to shake loose the part of his mind in which Betty will always be Archie's girl. He doesn't know how to dig deep into his subconscious, where all that history lives, and excise it. (And if he doesn't excise it, that impending supernova is going to feel so much worse for him – because underneath everything else, what he's actually worried about is: When is the other shoe going to drop? When is Betty going to wake up and remember that she's always wanted Archie?) And yet … and yet, he doesn't want to shake Betty loose. He wants to stay in her bright path.

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Here is the crux of the dream: Jughead is anxious. About it all. Good things and bad. Home, family, school, friendships, more-than-friendships. From where he's standing, it looks like if he gets off one collision course, he gets right onto another. He can't see a way to avoid ultimate implosion. All roads lead to the same black hole.

But then Archie suggests a possible solution to the problem of his dad – just the seed of one possible solution to just one problem – and the way forward opens up a little. The path clears. The mood finally lifts, and the resentment Jughead feels for Archie dissipates.

The reality is, they are out in the abyss together. This is no dream. This is just his friend, trying to help him navigate the vastness.

The story of gravity is just the story of love. The big always comes down to the small.


End file.
